Forum:Solo Xian Mei (Weapon Load-Out
Ok, first off, this guide is about playing solo as Xian Mei. I've tried all four characters, but she has become my favorite since her playstyle is just so fun and I've never been bored with her. Now on to the topic... WEAPON LOAD-OUT: On my weapon wheel, I've got (starting from the 12 o'clock position going clockwise) 1) Striker Heavy Pistol (Purple) 2) Molotovs 3) Pride Shotgun (Orange) 4) Deathstalker Zed's Demise (Orange - obviously) 5) Fists (default) 6) Plaguebearer (White) 7) Shock Auto Rifle (White) 8) Deo-Bombs This is just the load-out I used to beat the game, with a Toxic Wakizashi (Blue) as back-up, in case I ran out of durability on my Zed's. Far from being a perfect load-out though, I imagine it has to go through a lot of tweaking to have maximum efficiency. I also carry one stack of Medium Medkits (not Large, as I am still level 38, and Mediums suffice because of Xian Mei's Medkit Skills). SKILL TREE BUILD: Concentrated on the Combat Skill Tree and just reached the 3rd Tier for Fury (Boiling Bloodrage) and the 4th Tier for Survival (Field Medicine). Didn't invest heavily in Fury since I was just planning on using it as a bug-out skill. And of course, with all the Xian Mei guides for Survival, they just recommend getting Vampire 3. I simply got Deeper Pockets 3 for the convenience, as I like lugging around extra weapons that I loot, so that I can sell them later for some quick cash (especially guns, since they're always worth a lot). With Combat, the only skill I would say not to overlook is Flying Strike. Not only is this skill a ton of fun, it'll also become your bread-and-butter skill for the rest of your playthrough. Just make sure you get to the bottom of the skill tree of course, not only for her awesome heel-stomp, but also for the sharp weapon bonuses. Not a big fan of her 'shove' attack, as her jump attack will almost always OHKO walkers and infected alike. The other skills are mostly determined by individual playstyle, such as me getting Poisonous 3, because I'm using the Plaguebearer to bring down special infected. INTERMEDIATE - ADVANCED TACTICS: Speaking of Plaguebearer, since Xian's Combat Tree offers some poison-related upgrades, I decided to use this little gem to make my life in DI so much easier. The basic premise is throwing the knife (which poisons 100% of the time, and doesn't affect the durability), jumping in with my Flying Strike, spamming 'F' to take out the Plaguebearer (so there is no risk of the weapon despawing with the zombie corpse), then opening my weapon wheel to take out my Striker Heavy Pistol and shooting the puking zombie to set it on fire (which almost always kills it). Mind you, this is only for special infected, as the combo itself would be a waste on Walkers and Infected. Thugs, Rams, and Butchers though are fair game. So is the Infected Ryder White (Jason can be easily killed this way as well, but interestingly, the Infected Warrior was immune to poisoning by Plaguebearer). But Floaters of course are immune to poison. And Suiciders will just die by breach of proximity since they will 'suicide'. With Floaters, I just Deo-Bomb them, takes just 1-2 depending on how close you can lob it to where the Floater is. With Suiciders, for laughs, I'll kick it, then jump back 2 times to get out of it's blast radius. As I've mentioned, the load-out that I have still has a lot of tweaking ahead of it. Since I basically just copied the load-out for my Purna (which I initially finished the game with), having all 3 types of guns on hand. But without Purna's gun skills, all the gun types do not crit enough to merit the mods. And with Xian having such a small ammo reserve, you'll just go through all the bullets and would be lucky to have 2-3 crit hits. So I was thinking of swapping out her rifle and shotgun with either 2 more Deathstalker wakizashis / katanas, or 1 more Plaguebearer and a Deathstalker wakizashi / katana. I'll have to experiment more on that. Since I mentioned how I dealt with the specials, I'll move on to Walkers and Infected. Solo, they are no threat, I just jump-kick then heel-stomp them to oblivion. This saves your weapon's durability, plus it's fun. When there are two or more, this is when the real fun starts. Walkers on the most part, are very easy to kite, due to them being so slow. My only tip, keep moving, never be a stationary target. This is specially true with Infected, since receiving the full brunt of their multi-hit combo will either kill you outright, or leave you with so little health, tripping over your own feet will kill you. Flying Strike will quickly become your best friend in these situations. Learn to use it, practice it, I've tried to master it, and it tends to hit 80-90% of the time in my case. There are 5 ways of executing it, forward, backward, left, right, and in place. Which means when you dodge (specially with left and right dodging) swing your weapon to make a dodging Flying Strike. Since Infected are so aggressive, they'll just basically run into your weapon. And with so much stamina to work with, even if you didn't hit anything with your dodging and swinging, you'll still have a lot to work with should you decide to try again. Although if you're not sure about your Flying Strike skills, you can always just back-pedal while swinging your weapon. Just time it right, and you'll OHKO the Infected since they have so little health. Sometimes, I would even crouch while waiting for them to come to me then slice their legs off from right under them. This usually happens when I happen to be in a different elevation like when on stairs or on a slope. But keep moving, when the Walker or Infected gets to you, they will start their combo animation, so just jump out of the way. I've been hit like this and just lost 1 bar of my health, then looked on while the zombie wailed away at air. Then I just jumped in with my Flying Strike and ended it. For now, I didn't get Backstab, probably when my level cap goes up to 60, but I didn't want to waste time trying to get the 'perfect' shot in the back. When the opportunity presents itself, in the half to one second of enemy vulnerability, I take it. Again, Flying Strike FTW. A few notes on handling the other specials. Thugs, ah what can I say, when I started to play the game, I was deathly afraid of Thugs. What with their ability to send you flying several feet, making you fall flat in your face, with the looming fear that this hulking monstrosity is getting ever closer to again rip you a new one. All with that awful roaring sound. Now, I just throw the Plaguebearer at it, laugh while I watch it puke it's guts out, then set it aflame with my Striker pistol. I would again laugh at it's fiery jittering death dance. Now coupled with it's girlish dying screams. But if I was feeling a bit adventurous, I would take it on with nothing but my blade, my Flying Strike, and a battle yell. With the range of wakizashis / katanas, you can hit it with a forward Flying Strike. Then quickly spam jumping back to avoid it's swinging arms. For me, it goes down in 2-4 hits. If I get lucky and get a crit in, it's just 1 hit, it'll puke once, then die. Which does make Poisonous 3 a bit redundant but I didn't get it for my Deathstalker modded blades. I got the skill for the Plaguebearer. The skill gives me enough time to pull off my combo. Rams. The same combo applies, the only difference is once it pukes, I run at it, pull off the Plaguebearer, then start going crazy at it's exposed back. To Flying Strike, or not to Flying Strike, totally up to you. When I get tired of the hilarity of watching Rams throw up their lunches, I go with the 'matador' approach. Wait for them to charge, dodge at the last possible moment (dodge too early and it would steer it's path and still end up hitting you), then start slashing at it's back. Since it's directional defense renders any damage done to it, besides it's back to be reduced to 1, there is no other place to hit it. I've also tried throwing the Plaguebearer, ran and pulled it out, watched it puke awhile (thanks to Poisonous 3), then set it afire with the Striker Pistol, all from the front. But it leaves them with some health, so just rinse and repeat. Butchers. Scared of them. Just plain and simple. I've never been killed by one, but just look at that face! So scared of them that I've been so cautious that I always end up with overkill. My basic combo decimates it. But I still kick it's corpse just to make sure it's dead. I dunno, they're psychologically very disturbing. Floaters. I've tried following the guides. Ran up to it. Jump-kicked at it. Kicked it. Ran around to it's back while slashing. But I always end up getting damaged by the puke. Hate it. The only time this worked was when I chanced upon one who was still trying to stand up from a shallow pool where it was taking an afternoon nap. I kicked and stabbed this joker back to whatever hell it came from. It never was able to get back up. Tried my Shock Auto Rifle to deal with it (since as Purna, I was able to see that yes, it is weak with electric attacks), but I end up almost using up all of my ammo with no crits. Disappointing. So when I see one, and they are usually surrounded by Walkers anyways, I just Deo-Bomb away. Less hassle, less worry. Suiciders. When they are grouped with Walkers, I just use my Striker Pistol (or my Pride Shotgun, since I almost have no more use for it), so it'll explode and take out the other zombies with it. When there's any explosive tanks around, I go for that. If you can find some throwables (crates, etc) then you can hit them with that, watch them fall on their face, then laugh when they explode on the ground. When I feel adventurous, or when I sometimes find them alone, I would kick it, then jump back twice. The most you'll get out of this is get knocked down, but no damage. I've been killed more times with a mis-throw of a Deo-Bomb or Grenade (and I always feel dumb when this happens) than with an exploding Suicider. ANGEL (28 JULY 2014)